“The wedding party boarded the ship where a tent of gold and scarlet cloth had been raised. Until midnight, all was gaiety, and my grand daughter danced and laughed with death in her heart. When the bride and groom walked into their tent, the ship grew quiet. My grand daughter stood at the rail looking toward the east for the pink of dawn, the sun that would turn her to foam.”
Now it is tears that roll down Rune’s chin; she is not weeping for the mermaid because she has seen her with her own eyes, but she is weeping for the love that might have been, that should have been, that will surely be hers.
“At that moment, her sisters rose alongside the ship, their head’s shorn to the scalp,” the queen says and twirls a finger through her long white hair. “We have given our hair to the sea witch in exchange for this knife, sharper than shark’s teeth. Before the sun rises, you must plunge it into the heart of the prince,” they said.
Rune can’t help herself; she takes hold of the queen’s hand, and the queen squeezes Rune’s hand. “When his warm blood sprays your feet, your tail will return and you will be a mermaid once again, to live three hundred years in our father’s kingdom. Hurry, he must die before the sun rises and the horizon has turned pink, her sisters pleaded. She took the knife and drew aside the crimson cloth of the tent to see the bride sleeping with her head on the prince’s chest. She bent and kissed his forehead and he whispered the name of his bride. My grand daughter’s hand trembled as it gripped the handle of the knife, then she threw it into the sea where the waves turned red where it fell. Her eyes glazed in death, she threw herself into the sea and felt her body change into foam.”
Rune leaps to her feet, struggling for balance atop the turtle’s shell. She releases a horrible beastly howl, which does not faze either the old queen or the old turtle. “Would you have stabbed your prince, Rune?"
“No,” she shouts, “I would have stabbed that imposter who stole the love that was rightfully mine and thrown her into the sea!”
The old queen laughs, wheezing, and breathless laughter.
“What’s so friggin’ funny?” Rune demands.
The queen is holding her ribs, and the turtle joins in on the laughter, wheezing louder than the queen. “Never mind, child. She is back with us thanks to you. Sit down, please or you’ll be thrown in the sea. We will reach land soon and I am nearly finished.”
Rune sits, her entire face contorted with anger.
“We thought she was lost forever, then last night, my grand daughter told us that after she had turned to foam, she saw the sun and above her floated hundreds of airy, transparent forms. Their voices were so tender that no human ear could hear them, just as their forms were so fragile, no human eye could see them, and her body was exactly the same as their bodies. We are daughters of the air, they said, and have not received souls either, but we can win one by doing good deeds for three hundred years. You are one of us now, little mermaid, and if you earnestly try to do what is good, you too may earn an internal soul. She was trying to do a good deed by blowing your dory across the Great Belt. And then you magically transformed her back to her true self,” the queen says and kisses Rune’s cheek.
Rune’s face wears an incredulous expression. “If that doesn’t just frost the friggin’ cake,” she mutters. “I can swim to land from here; I am simply beside myself,” she says and jumps into the sea. The queen waves as Rune shouts, “I told you, it wasn’t my magic that changed her—I sure hope she stays a mermaid.”
* * *
“You look like a bat when you flatten your ears in an attempt to look questioning and vulnerable,” Elora says to Croesus and sips her Grand Marnier. The pair reclines in Le Corbusier chaise lounge chairs before a crackling fire in the palace library. The ginkgo, majolica fireplace tiles gleam in the fire’s glow. The crystal ball sits between them on a stand where they have been watching Rune and the dowager queen.
“Will she remain a mermaid? She should—my spells are ironclad, but the ambient apathetic ooze of Andersen Land could interfere even with my genius.” Elora throws her empty glass into the fire, which flares briefly to the shape of a mermaid.
“Her story was the only one from Andersen Land the Disney crew took on and they took more liberties than a hungry fat man at an all-you-can eat buffet. Their Princess Ariel is sixteen and spunky. Just like in the other Disney princess flicks, the creatures sing and dance while helping Ariel out of sticky situations. She falls for Prince Eric and goes to the sea witch, Ursula. In this film she has black tentacles from the waist down and from the waist up is a bustier thrusting her DD tata’s out in front of her. She wears big white hair, blue eye shadow, arched black eyebrows half way up her forehead, big red lips and long red nails. Hell, she could be Divine’s stand-in for Pink Flamingos. The real witch, Winifred, looks like a giant sea cucumber with eyes. You remember her; she came to Samhain once, fifty years ago, stayed in the pool, neutralized the chlorine and we had scum for weeks?”
Croesus sticks out his tongue and blows a raspberry.
“Disney’s Ariel makes a deal with Ursula, no cutting out of tongue, no walking on sharp knives—Ariel gets three days of legs in exchange for her voice. Eric finds her on the beach, takes her to his castle, and figures she is not the one who saved him because she can’t speak, like in the Andersen tale. Meanwhile, Ursula changes herself into a beauty and with Ariel’s voice, enchants the prince into believing she was the one who saved him and he pops the question.”
Croesus drops his jaw in mock surprise.
“The wedding barge is set to sail, leaving Ariel behind to weep in her hands, but her faithful helpful critters come to the rescue by breaking Ursula’s necklace, which holds Ariel’s voice. Spell broken, Ariel’s voice back in place, she calls out to prince and he rushes to kiss her, but the sun sets on the third day and poof, she’s mermaid again. Double poof, Ursula is the sea witch again. She kidnaps Ariel down to her lair where King Triton shows up to rescue his daughter,” Elora says.
Croesus makes a pfftt noise, a dog style, ‘as if.’
“I know, but wait, there’s more. Ariel can’t break her contract with the witch so her father sacrifices himself for Ariel and the witch turns him into a polyp. Don’t ask me, you don’t want to know. Name one, one king father of a princess in the fairy tale realm that sacrifices himself for his daughter . . . hmm, Snow White—no, left her alone with the evil stepmother; Rapunzel, no she was bargained away at birth for rampion; Sleeping Beauty, ah, no, he didn’t invite the 13th wise woman to the birth banquet resulting in the curse that put the whole bloody kingdom to sleep. Cinderella—nope, mother dies, father marries sadistic harpy, and it doesn’t seem to bother him a bit that Cindy is perpetually covered in soot.”
Croesus begins grooming, in case there is a trace of fireplace ash on his gorgeous red and white coat.
“So back to the Disney flick, Ursula grabs the king’s triton and crown and whips up a major whirlpool, giddy with power. Eric jumps aboard an abandoned ship, and just as Ursula is about to kill Ariel with the triton, Eric rams the ship’s bowsprit through the witch. The king is restored to his body, and he throws a grand wedding to which everyone is invited, humans, merpeople and crafty cute sea critters. Don’t you dare sigh,” Elora says, catching Croesus on the inhale.
“Listen, fur face, I didn’t give her back her true form because I like the girl. Hers’ is the most sentimental, misogynistic, moralizing tale in the land. Just like Helga, the Bog King’s daughter, she could have changed her fate with a change of mind. I did it for Rune.”
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
The Red Shoes
The Andersen Land Philosopher is flying high over Zealand. From his birds-eye view he spies Rune climbing out of the Great Belt at the harbor of Helsingor, the northeastern most point of Denmark. He can also see Beauty and Holger climbing out of the Great Belt at the harbor of Korsor on the west coast of Zealand. “One can advise comfortably from a safe port,” he squawks to no one in particular. He en
joys the sound of his own voice.
It is dark at the Helsingor harbor, and so is Rune’s mood. The swim dampened her anger, but darkened her thoughts. The swan promised me I would transform here in Andersen Land, she thinks as she shakes water from her fur. I’ve learned of two transformations: Helga’s and the mermaid’s, and both transformed to human girls, part of the time, but neither of them stayed that way, but transformed a third time from girl to light and girl to air. I hate this stinking place.
Rune whacks the side of her head, jumping on one foot to dispel the water from her ear, and notices rows of lights glowing in the distance. The moon scoots out from behind a cloud and Rune’s breath is taken away as the moonlight shines brightly on Kronborg Castle. She could not have imagined such a castle. She counts the rows of lights, four stories high, and in the towers there are six. Oh and there are many towers and spires, cannons black noses pointed outward from the roofs. The castle sits on a peninsula and is surrounded by a deep moat.
Rune walks toward the castle like a sleepwalker. She crosses the moat bridge to enter a huge stone courtyard where trees grow in urns, and where stand statues of former kings and warriors. Rune approaches the entrance, three giant archways cut into golden hued stone, a Grecian column on either side of each arch.
As she passes through the center arch, she walks softly and lightly, as if a string runs from her feet through the top of her head and lifts her slightly off the ground, the walk of a princess within her palace. She approaches the first lighted window and looks inside to see the Main Hall with its shining checkerboard marble floor, soaring archways and glittering chandeliers. She ducks her head as a servant passes the window pushing a cart groaning with food. It is laden with roasted pheasants, loaves of breads, bowls of brussel sprouts and potatoes and squash; bowls of fruit, slabs of butter and carafes of wine. A feast fit for a king.
Rune skips along the windows outside the Main Hall, following the servant and his cart until at last he enters the Dining Hall. The room is--Rune searches her mind, picturing her mother’s dictionary, for the perfect word to describe the room—splendid. It is six times the size of Cozy Cave. The furniture is enormous, beautiful carved, polished mahogany tables and sideboards. Golden chandeliers with Austrian crystal prisms hang from the ceiling and tapestries of landscapes hang on the walls. In one corner, a musician strums a mandolin and in another a woman plays a harp. Seating at the table is the royal family: a king, a queen, three princesses and one prince, and a manservant stands behind each one.
Rune presses her nose to the windowpane, her eyes devouring every detail of their faces and their finery. In the nature of fourteen-year-old girls, the prince is the first she sizes up. She is disappointed; the prince is not pretty, he is pudgy. A roll of satin covered fat lops over the waistband of his breeches. He is also pimply and his blond hair hangs limply below his chin.
Rune barely glances at the king and queen; they appear as every king and queen she has seen in history books. However, the three princesses gain Rune’s full and devoted attention. They are each close to her age. She begins with their feet, encased in gold embroidered slippers, neatly tucked beneath the table, one thin ankle resting on the other. Their gowns are pale yellow, pale green, and pale pink, cinched at the waist, and the bodices are bedecked with white flowers, a pearl in the center of each blossom. Their hair is the color of flax seed and their eyes the pale watery blue of March skies. Their noses are long and pointed and their lips thin lines of discontent.
Rune turns away from the window and pictures again, as she has dozens of times, her true face within the magic mirror and her true body within the emperor’s mirror. My feet are smaller than their feet; my body is curved like an hourglass, not straight and thin. My hair is like a golden waterfall of curls and my eyes are as brown and beguiling as a fawn’s. I belong at that table more than any one of them, she thinks, eyes narrowing, her jaw clenching.
* * *
Beauty furrows her hairy brow at the sight of Rune’s expression within the mirror—exactly like Runyon’s whenever his father, the King, visited Castle Fleur de Coer. That was before Beauty left on her quest, before Runyon poisoned the King and took his crown. Now she is grateful for the precious time Rune is spending at Kronborg Castle, the sooner to catch up with her, for she and Holger had paused as well. While climbing up the wharf at Korsor, Holger tore his shin. Despite his protest, Beauty insisted they stop when she spied a cluster of sedum plants. She ripped up one plant, bit off the bottoms of the roots, and applied them to Holger’s shin.
“By Odin’s beard, the bleeding has stopped and the pain is gone,” Holger says, and Beauty sets the mirror aside to examine his leg.
“The plant is Sedum Purpureum, common name Live-Forever. It also works well for stomach pain when brewed as tea,” Beauty says. “I have a medicinal garden at my home in the Grimm forest.”
“I should like to see your garden one day,” Holger says as he stands and the two pick up their pace, heading northwest.
* * *
Rune is wrung out with emotion and longs for a warm, soft spot to sleep. From the far end of the castle comes the whinny of horses. Rune loves horses as most fourteen-year-old girls do, even though she had never ridden one. She trots off in the direction of the Royal Stable hoping to sleep there tonight. Nearing the stable, she is stopped short by a multi-colored glow. The Royal Chapel Window soars twenty feet high and depicts Saint Margaret of Antioch who was swallowed by a beast, but due to her faith and goodness and the cross she wore that choked the beast, she emerged alive and well.
Rune steps backward to view the entire glass mosaic. Candles are lit inside the chapel and their light makes the glass glow like precious jewels: the emerald green of Margaret’s robe, her amber hair, the gold of her cross, and the ruby red beast’s mouth, lifeless at the base of the glass, while Margaret rises from the beast’s dead shell.
Tingles spark Rune’s scalp and the hair on her arms stands erect. “It has happened before,” she whispers, “a beautiful princess living beneath beastly skin . . . a real transformation. It must have happened in this land, in a church . . .“ her eyes roll upward, fixing on the cross hanging about the saint’s neck . . . “when she was confirmed. I need a gold cross and I’ll find one on the way to Copenhagen, I know in my heart that I will.”
The Andersen Land philosopher alights on Rune’s shoulder. He gazes at the window and says, “If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.”
Rune drops to the ground and turns three somersaults and the bird flies to the chapel’s roof. Too excited to sleep, she runs to the main crossroads entering Helsingor where stands a wooden signpost. An arrow points east to Hellerod, another points west to Halsingbord, and the third points south to Copenhagen.
An hour has passed and the hour is now midnight. Rune has entered a sparse forest and moonlight coats the forest floor with shadows of tree limbs. Her adrenalin has ebbed low and she finds a huge fir tree to bed down beneath. She eases into sleep with thoughts of her transformation . . . perhaps an emerald green gown, but not hanging loose, tailored to fit my curvy form, a full skirt with a train flowing behind . . . green like the forest . . . no, something that shouts my beauty, red, yes, ruby red . . .
The sound of rapid footsteps jolts Rune from sleep. She leaps to her feet and scans the forest as far as her beastly eyes will allow, which is a fair distance. Two flashes of red dance toward her and in a moment it is clear to her that the red flashes are in fact a pair of shoes. Not your average shoes, but shoes so exquisite that Rune does not even notice the skeletal feet inside the dancing shoes. The shoes stop before her dancing a clog. How can I describe this shade of red? Rune wonders. Ah, the glowing, liquid red of ripe currants, translucent with a hint of sunshine, a hue so alive it seems about to give birth. The shoe toes are pointed and the heels like miniature pedestals. The front is as high as the back, bowing lower in curves at the center, reminding Ru
ne of a ship at sea.
The shoes quit the clog and dance slow, seductive sliding steps in a circle around Rune. Now she sees the stub of shin and anklebone protruding from each shoe, and from the right anklebone, a gold chain dangles. She reaches out to pluck the chain from the shoe, and the shoe rubs against Rune’s hand like a cat in heat. Rune eyes half close and she makes a yummy noise; the leather is soft, softer even than the softest thing she knows, which is the ears of Manfred the Mink, a neighbor to Cozy Cave. These shoes are fit for Princess Rune.
“For pity sake, for the love of God, don’t touch the shoes,” the bones cry.
Rune pulls back her hand but does not take her eyes from the shoes, for the dangling chain threads through the foot bones and ends with a gold cross at the great toe bone. Not only the most beautiful shoes in the world, but a cross for my confirmation, Rune thinks, I knew, I knew in my bones I would find a gold cross on the way to Copenhagen.
“These shoes are cursed! Stay away, stay away!” The bones scream and lean far left causing the soles to lift and dance a Cha-cha-cha fifty feet east.
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